North Carolina gave our family so much growth, but deep down we knew God had other plans for us. We knew another move would eventually come.
With both of our families living in Texas, it felt like the obvious next step. My family was in North Texas, and my husband’s family was in South Texas, so we weren’t focused on one specific area. Our goal was simply to be within a day’s drive of family again.
So we prayed, and we waited, patiently listening for God’s direction.
One day, an opportunity with my husband’s company opened up in Central Texas. This had to be it… right? Everything made sense. It was exactly where we thought we were supposed to be. We started dreaming about what life would look like and couldn’t imagine a better answer to our prayers.
There was just one catch.
The position required an interview process, and several people were applying for the same opportunity.
My husband flew to Texas, met with the team, and completed his interview. Then came the waiting. His company has a policy of calling the applicants who weren’t selected before making the offer to the chosen candidate, so every day that passed without a phone call gave us a little more hope.
Surely this was the door God had opened for us.
After weeks of waiting, the phone finally rang.
They had chosen someone else.
My husband felt crushed. He felt like he had let our family down, which is something I know so many spouses can relate to when they’re carrying the weight of providing for their family.
But I reminded him that he hadn’t failed us.
Maybe this wasn’t a closed door.
Maybe it was God protecting us from walking through the wrong one.
So we kept trusting.
Over the next several months, a few other opportunities came across his desk, but none of them felt right for our family. We didn’t spend much time talking about them because neither of us felt any peace about those options.
Then one day, his supervisor mentioned a position in Alabama.
That evening my husband casually brought it up at home, and honestly… we laughed.
Alabama?
We didn’t know anyone there. We had no family nearby. We had never pictured ourselves living there.
It definitely wasn’t the answer we thought we had been praying for.
Life continued on, and before we knew it, we were approaching three years in North Carolina - the longest our family had ever lived in one place. We finally felt settled. The kids had friends, routines, and schools they loved. We had always said that once our oldest reached high school, we didn’t want to move again until she graduated.
She was in seventh grade.
Our window was getting smaller.
Maybe North Carolina was where God wanted us to stay after all.
Then one afternoon, my husband was asked to stay after work to talk with his boss. Alabama came up again.
The position still hadn’t been filled, and his supervisor believed my husband would be a great fit—not only for the role, but for the next step in his career.
He listened respectfully, but as he drove home, he already knew what he was going to tell me.
We had already talked about Alabama.
It wasn’t our plan.
That evening, after dinner, he shared the conversation with me. I agreed, and we moved on with our evening.
But sometime between that night and the next morning, my heart felt different.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe we had dismissed Alabama too quickly.
Had God been trying to show us something the first time?
Had we been so focused on our own plan that we completely missed His?
After many conversations and a lot of prayer, we came to a simple decision.
He would apply.
Not because we were convinced we were moving to Alabama, but because we trusted that if this was where God wanted us, He would make the path clear.
If it wasn’t, another door would close.
Either way, we would have our answer.
This time, we approached the process differently.
We didn’t let ourselves get caught up in dreaming about the future before we knew God’s plan. We stayed hopeful, but we held our plans loosely.
Unlike the first interview, this one was close enough to drive, so we decided to make it a family trip. One thing we hadn’t shared with our kids through either interview process was what was actually happening. We didn’t want them to get attached to the idea of another move before we even knew if it was a possibility. As hard as it was to keep something that big from them, we felt it was the best way to protect their hearts from the same disappointment we had experienced before.
So to them, it was simply a fun family getaway.
To us, it was a weekend filled with quiet prayers, hopeful conversations, and trusting that God would make His plan clear.
Then came the waiting again. We waited as the company finished interviewing the remaining candidates. We prayed. We trusted. And we wondering what God had planned.
Until one day, the phone rang.
He got the job.
The position in Alabama.
At one of the company’s largest locations.
Looking back now, it’s amazing how different God’s plan looked from the one we had imagined.
Texas made sense to us.
Alabama didn’t.
But God saw what we couldn’t.
Little by little, He began putting every piece into place, and we realized His plan had been better than anything we could have written ourselves.
Sometimes the answer to our prayers isn't the one we've already planned out in our minds. Sometimes it's one we would have never chosen ourselves.
We were headed to Alabama.
And we had no idea just how chaotic that move was about to become…
Next Chapter: The Chaos of Moving Across State Lines
Until next time,
— Katelyn
KD Kreative Digital
